--------------- MAIL MANAGEMENT --------------- The 2 MB maximum message size restriction that was put into place several days ago turned out to be extraordinarily unpopular, but we had no other way to deal with the immediate disk space problem. As was explained in System News on December 12, we were being flooded with e-mail containing multi-megabyte file attachments (mostly holiday-oriented graphics files), and the disk space allocated for storage of incoming mail (the "mail spool directory") just couldn't handle the sudden load. Due to the unpopularity of the restriction, and because it imposed a hardship on users with legitimate needs to send and receive non-ephemeral large file attachments, the restriction was removed shortly after 11:00 AM Sunday, December 14. I'd like to try a different approach to the disk space problem, but it will work only with the full cooperation of all account holders. If it fails, then we may have to reinstate the message size restriction until after the holiday file attachment frenzy subsides. Please read the rest of this message carefully. If you have any questions about it, please contact the BCPL Help Desk at 410-887-3297 or help@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us. BACKGROUND: ---------- All incoming mail addressed to you is stored in your "mail spool file" on our mail server. The mail spool files for all users are in a single "mail spool directory" (/var/mail) on one of the server's hard disks. If you are a PPP user and read your mail with a mail program on your PC or Mac, your mail program extracts your new mail from your mail spool file and downloads it to your own computer's hard disk. If you are a UNIX shell account user, Pine displays your mail spool file as your "Inbox". The amount of disk space allotted to the mail spool directory is more than adequate to handle our normal volume of incoming mail, even during a normal holiday greetings blitz. Unfortunately the holiday greetings blitz this year has been far from normal thanks to the popularity of sending graphical greetings as file attachments. Such messages take up much more than the usual amount of disk space, hence the recent emergency situation. EVERYONE: -------- It is your responsibility to keep the size of your mail spool file on the server as small as possible. This may require that you read your mail more often than you currently do. How often is often enough depends on how much mail you receive and how big the messages are. A user who receives only a few short messages each day can get away with reading mail less frequently than the user who is on lots of high-volume mailing lists, or who receives lots of large file attachments. It is also your responsibility to avoid using your mail spool file as dead storage for e-mail you have already read. What this means to you depends on whether you use a mail program on your own computer via a PPP connection, or Pine while logged into your UNIX shell account, as explained below. PPP USERS --------- If you use a Mac or PC based mail program (Eudora, Claris E-Mailer, Microsoft Outlook, Netscape Navigator, etc.), you must configure it to remove old mail from the server. This ensures that once your new mail is downloaded to your computer, the original copies are deleted from your mail spool file on the mail server. Otherwise your old mail remains on the server forever, and your mail spool file eventually gets large enough to cause problems. Where you find this setting depends on which mail program you use. Somewhere in your mail program's setup you will find a radio button, checkbox, or menu choice labeled "Remove from server" or "Leave on server" or words to that effect. Regardless of the wording, you want the option that will remove mail from the server once it has been downloaded to your computer. If you can't find this setting in your mail program, please refer to your mail program's manual or contact the BCPL Help Desk at 410-887-3297 or help@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us for assistance. Please note that deleting individual messages as you read them from within your mail program only deletes the copies stored on your own hard disk. It does not delete the message from the server. Only the "Remove from server" setting described above will do that. UNIX SHELL/PINE USERS --------------------- If you are a Pine user, be sure to delete messages you no longer need. If you want to save messages, do not simply leave them in your Inbox. Use Pine's "S" (Save) command to move them to saved-mail folders. Or, use the "E" (Export) command to save them as files in your home directory, then download them from there to your own Mac or PC. In either case the message is moved from the shared disk space (the mail spool directory) to your personal disk space (your home directory or your own hard disk). Pine users please note that this has nothing to do with mail you have stored in other Pine folders. Those folders are in your own disk space, so how full or empty you keep them is up to you. It is only your Pine Inbox that needs to be kept cleaned out. BOTTOM LINE ----------- In removing the message size restriction we are opening ourselves to the possibility that the mail spool area will fill up again. If this happens the mail system will grind to a halt. We are counting on you, the users of our mail system, to prevent this by practicing responsible mail management. This is a much better solution than imposing limits which hurt everyone, not just the people who abuse the system. ON A RELATED ISSUE: ------------------ In response to the December 12 System News, many users asked how we knew the problem was being caused by multi-megabyte file attachments containing holiday graphics. Several expressed the opinion that we must be snooping around in their e-mail. We respect your e-mail privacy. I guarantee it! However, one side effect of huge file attachments is that some mail programs (especialy Netscape) have trouble downloading them. If a mail download aborts before completion, the user's mail spool file can be left in a locked condition (called a "POP lock") that prevents the user from downloading any more mail until the lock is cleared. When a user contacts us to complain of problem that turns out to be caused by a leftover POP lock, the first step is to clear the lock. Ideally, I then check the user's mail spool file to see if I can determine what caused the problem. This requires that I go into the user's mail spool file, but I do that ONLY if the user says I may. If the owner says no, then I leave the mail spool file alone. Thanks to the recent holiday greetings blitz, in recent weeks this scenario has been played out more often than usual. More often than not, the messages causing problems have begun with something along the lines of "Hey, get a load of this neato Santa Claus graphic", followed by an encoded file attachment. That's how I know what kind of files are flooding the mail spool area. In case I forget later on, let me take this opportunity to wish all of you happy holidays. But please, PLEASE don't bombard me with multi-megabyte holiday graphic file attachments. I have a hard enough time keeping my Inbox down to a reasonable size even without them. :-) ------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have questions about this, or about anything else related to your BCPL Internet Account, please contact the BCPL Help Desk. Phone: 410-887-3297 FAX: 410-887-2091 E-Mail: help@mail.bcpl.lib.md.us Help Pages: http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/help.html (or enter "help" at the UNIX shell prompt) System News Archives: http://www.bcpl.lib.md.us/sysnews.html (or enter "sysnews" at the UNIX shell prompt)